Recognition: How My Mother’s Suicide Showed Me The Way
Some part of me broke free the other day.
It happened when I realized my grief wasn’t only about the physical death of my mother, but was also the recognition of her in myself.
Mom suffered for years. She suffered physically from a nerve disorder, the result of a fall down two otherwise insignificant steps and a botched surgery that left her reliant, and eventually completely dependent and addicted, upon narcotics to get through the day.
Mostly though, beginning long before her fall, she suffered under the weight of expectation. The expectation to be thin, to be “put together”. To serve my dad, to serve us, to attend every school function, to be the perfect mother, the perfect daughter, the perfect Junior Leaguer, to present a perfect house. To be thin.
She wasn’t free to self-actualize, not as a conservative teacher in the 1960s or as a country club wife and mom in the 1980s. Generationally, she had a specific role to play, and anyone who knew my mom knows she took that role very seriously, likely out of duty to us kids but also out of fear — fear of judgment, fear of failure. Fear of damnation. She believed with her whole heart that her role was to serve, so she did. She served her family daily, doing her duty with the hope that one day, ONE day, it would be her turn.
It was never going to be her turn.
I see this in my practice all the time. Aging women who have supported their men, built a life, nurtured a family. They curated every detail to further careers they would never experience all while looking ahead to retirement — that elusive prize which very often never comes, not for the women, anyway. After all, there are still meals to be planned, laundry to be done.
While her physical pain raged on, her emotional pain eventually took over, roaring to life as the pills lost their power and the reality of what her life had become came into focus. She had given everything of herself to the point of there being nothing left but the shell of a heartbroken woman.
I know what my mother believed about me when she took her life. What I perceived as boundary setting and protection, she perceived as cruelty and abandonment.
You killed me with your hate.
She relied on me to validate her, to believe her, to rescue her and I let her down. My own pain and anger after decades of enduring very scary and hurtful behavior blurred my vision.
I was too busy fighting not to become her.
And now I find myself worrying. All the time. Measuring myself against these same expectations that seem to come out of nowhere. A sort of self-imposed ratings system. How do I look? Are the girls okay? Am I doing enough? Is my husband fulfilled? Is daddy okay? Is everyone okay?!
Am I enough?
I recognize this for what it is — grief, middle age, motherhood, wifedom, but I do not accept that it should be the norm. I see [more] clearly now that these expectations only serve one purpose — keeping us all in line, putting everyone in nice, tidy little boxes so we think we know what to expect from one another.
But it’s not real.
I have dedicated my entire educational and professional career to learning more about mental health, addictions, suicide prevention, and healing from trauma, and yet I could not save my own mother from herself. It’s an impossible task, I know this, because we cannot save anyone but ourselves, but the what ifs linger.
Now I am focused on saving myself and changing the narrative for my own girls so they don’t fall prey to this tired old scheme.
My message to them is this: Every day is an opportunity, and if you wait, if you make yourself small to fit the desires of others, if you squeeze yourself into the girdle of expectation over and over and over, eventually you will become cozy there, bound up, sucked in, suffocated.
Your time is now. Don’t wait.
